Beijing, China

Hope you are all well! I arrived safe but tired yesterday after two long flights and a taxi to the hotel. Met up the people on my tour, they are all pretty nice mostly young twentysomethings. We all went for dinner which was nice and really cheap! We got loads of dishes between us including beijing's speciality crispy duck and it was about 3 pounds each!!!

Was in bed by about 9 last night though as was shattered! Room is fine, sharing with a girl from London who is nice - single beds, not bunks yet which is good!

This morning a few of us went with a local guide to soo the forbiden city and tia-men square. It was all huge! The guide told is tha 1/2 a million people can stand in the square and that the forbidden city once had 9999 rooms - all for the emporer and his family. Learnt alot about his concubines too (lady's of the night!!) our guide was pretty fixated on them!!

The five of us then went for lunch - again really good chinese food - including some lovely king prawns in chilli - I'm getting pretty nifty with my chopsticks now! This was 2.50!! The prices here are made though - you can get a full meal for 3 quid but a cup of coffee will cost you a fiver!!

We spent the afternoon looking at these little shops down a famous side street (i've forgotten the name already!) and got followed round by people wanting to sell us fridge magnets! We were also offered a selection of i-pods in this one shop for 15 pounds - probably too good to be true!!

I then went off on my own for a bit in search for some plasters (my feet are in agony and i've only brought one pair of shoes!) Then I got a taxi back to the hotel (1 pound!).

The weather is terrible - it's been pouring non stop since I got here - I haven't seen the sky either because they city is covered in this grey smog all the time - our guide told us it was just the weather but someone else said it was because there was so much pollution in the city - i'm reserving my judgement for now!!

The chinese people i've met so far are all nice - they stare at us alot though when were walking about and little childen like to come up and pat us!! There is a blonde woman here too with her son and people keep asking for her photo - i suppose her colouring is just unusual around here! A girl stopped me today too to say I have nice eyes (I didn't even have any make-up on!!!)

Going to have an early night again tonight as still pretty tired (we are 8 hours ahead here so it's bed time soon!) In Beijing again tommorow so I think we are going to the summer palace and then off to find a market.

I can't upload my photo's on this computer but will try when I get to the next hotel.